JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (First Chamber)

25 September 2007

Case F-108/05

Alessandro Cavallaro

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Officials – Remuneration – Expatriation allowance – Condition set out in Article 4(1)(b) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Cavallaro seeks, in particular, annulment of the decision of the Commission appointing authority of 10 August 2005 rejecting his complaint of 25 May 2005 against that authority’s decision of 3 March 2005 refusing to grant him the expatriation allowance.

Held: The action is dismissed. Each party is to bear its own costs.

Summary

1.      Procedure – Defence in disputes between the Communities and their staff

2.      Officials – Personal file

(Staff Regulations, Art. 26)

3.      Officials – Remuneration – Expatriation allowance – Conditions for granting

(Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Art. 4(1)(b))

1.      The rule of consistency between the prior administrative complaint and the action does not apply only to applicants. There is no rule or principle preventing defendant institutions from putting forward, in the defence, additional arguments to those on which they based their position in the pre-litigation phase and, consequently, from attaching to that defence documents providing proof in support of those arguments.

(see para. 38)

2.      The administrative purpose of a document placed in an official’s personal file on his own initiative is not confined solely to the uses which the official considers appropriate.

(see para. 39)

3.      Article 4(1)(b) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations must be interpreted as meaning that the reference period referred to in that provision expires, when an official is reassigned, on the date when he initially entered the service of the Communities.

(see para. 71)

See:

T-90/92 Magdalena Fernández v Commission [1993] ECR II‑971, para. 32